JOURNAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 33 2012 Coadjutor Archbishop Justin Simonds of Melbourne, Pope John XXIII and Michael Costigan, 10th June 1960. Photograph by the Pontifical Photographer, Felici. See article page 83. Front cover: window, St Benedict’s Church, Broadway Photo: Lyn Mills (see book review page 167) Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society Volume 33 2012 Contents Robert Lehane, Father Therry, Dr Bland and the problem of the trans- Atlantic telegraph.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2 Odhran O’Brien, The curious case of Bishop Brady: a new perspective . 10 Robert O’Shea, Irish nuns during English Benedictine rule: the impact of Irish sisters in early Catholic Australia . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 23 Stephen Utick, The faith-based charitable mission of Charles O’Neill in New South Wales (1881-91). 32 Vincent Crow, Secular and religious firsts of Haberfield . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 48 Michael McKernan, Churches at war, then and now.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 63 John Warhurst, Fifty years since the “Goulburn Strike”: Catholics and education politics .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 72 Michael Costigan, Vatican II as I experienced it.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 83 Edmund Campion, Vatican II: fifty years on ............................105 Benjamin Edwards, Vatican II and the dying gasps of Australian sectarianism.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 115 Paul Crittenden, Vatican II viewed from afar ............................125 James Franklin, Memoirs by Australian priests, religious and ex-religious .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 142 Pat Mullins, Looking back on the way we were. 163 Book review: Lyn Mills, Australia’s Oldest Consecrated Catholic Church: St Benedict’s, Broadway, reviewed by Edward Waters . 167 Book notes . 170 Journal Editor: James Franklin Contact Executive members of the Society General Correspondence, including membership applications and renewals, President: should be addressed to Dr John Carmody Vice Presidents: The Secretary Prof James Franklin ACHS Mr Geoffrey Hogan PO Box A621 Sydney South, NSW, 1235 Treasurer: Ms Helen Scanlon Enquiries may also be directed to: ACHS Chaplain: [email protected] Fr George Connolly 1 FATHER THERRY, DR BLAND AND THE PROBLEM OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH Robert Lehane* The advance of science in the 19th century owed much to the work of dedicated part-timers. In colonial Australia, Rev. Julian Tenison Woods, co-founder with Saint Mary of the Cross of the Sisters of St Joseph, was a major contributor; more than 150 published papers record his contributions to geology, palaeontology and zoology in the 1860s to ’80s.1 Rev. W.B. Clarke of the Church of England, honoured by the New South Wales government in 1861 as the scientific discoverer of Australian gold, was another.2 These men were true scientists, whose rigorous observations and analysis have stood the test of time. The century also produced a crop of enthusiastic amateurs, excited by the industrial revolution, who were able to persuade themselves, if few others, that they had found the answers to some big questions exercising people’s minds. For example, Dr William Bland, a surgeon much lauded in Sydney from the 1820s until his death in 1868 for his healing skill and benevolence, believed he had solved the problem of manned flight; his ‘atmotic ship’ would cut the travel time between Britain and New South Wales from two or three months to four or five days. Bland’s contemporary, the much loved but disputatious Rev. John Joseph Therry, thought he had a solution to problems that caused the first telegraph cable laid under the Atlantic Ocean, in the late 1850s, to fail. The Therry papers in the Mitchell Library include a handful of letters by Bland to the renowned priest, and some of his draft replies. The doctor, prominent in colonial politics from the 1830s and a key figure in the development of institutions including the Sydney Benevolent Society and Sydney College, was both his medical attendant and a friend.3 The first letter in the collection is dated October 1856, not long after Therry became parish priest at Balmain, the post he held until his death in May 1864. In it, Bland simply acknowledged ‘with best thanks’ a ‘most gratifying and kind communication’ from Therry enclosing a ‘very handsome fee’.4 In the next, sent nearly two years later with a bill, he had more to say:5 *Robert Lehane’s latest book, Duelling Surgeon, Colonial Patriot: The Remarkable Life of William Bland, was published by Australian Scholarly Publishing in December 2011. He is the author of Forever Carnival (Ginninderra Press, 2004), the story of Dr John Forrest, founding Rector of St John’s College, Sydney University, and William Bede Dalley: Silver-tongued Pride of Old Sydney (Ginninderra Press, 2007). 2 Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 33 (2012), 2-9. Father Therry,Dr Bland and the problem of the Trans-Atlantic telegraph Dear and Very Reverend Sir, Your being so well, as I was happy to find when I last did myself the pleasure to call on you, and the reports having been so favourable which have reached me since respecting your general appearance as to health, together with my hope and confidence had there been anything the least wrong you would have done me the favour to let me hear from you – have been my inducements to omit making any personal enquiries of late – and, in transmitting you the enclosed I will content myself with merely the expression of my sincere hope not only that you are in the enjoyment of your usual good health but that you may long continue to be so – and that you may thus be enabled to experience the fruits of your increasing labours spread over so many years and those acts of piety and benevolence for which you have been so long and are still so eminently conspicuous. Believe me, Dear and Very Reverend Sir, Yours ever most sincerely W. Bland Subsequent correspondence makes it clear that the sentiments the Anglican doctor expressed were genuine, not simply the products of Victorian convention. Bland had preceded Therry to the colony by six years, sentenced to seven years’ transportation for killing a fellow naval officer in a duel. This inauspicious beginning was followed by a year in Parramatta Gaol for libelling Governor Macquarie, but it was not long before his works won him high regard among Sydney’s gentry as well as the poor and afflicted. In a letter dated 3 May 1861, Therry confided that ‘on this day forty one years ago I arrived in this colony after a long and very perilous voyage having with me a particle of the holy Cross the festival of the invention or finding of which by Saint Helena mother of Constantine the Great is celebrated by the Catholic Church on this anniversary’.6 From ‘that day to the present’, he had been honoured by Bland’s friendship, and had ‘many opportunities of observing that the principal object of your ambition has constantly been to promote the interests not only of the society amongst whom you reside and of which you are justly looked upon as one of the most distinguished members, but those of mankind in general’. He therefore felt he could ‘with well founded confidence’ make a suggestion ‘which under your patronage as a great promoter of science may be of considerable advantage to the public in general’. 3 Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society Permit me to make this suggestion in a very plain and simple way by requesting you at a leisure hour, which you very seldom have, to order your domestic bath to be nearly filled with water, a cord of about half an inch diameter with some pieces of cork and as many of lead to be provided. Let the cord be passed through as many pieces of cork as may be sufficient to make the cord float horizontally on the surface of the water from one end to the other of the vessel, attach a piece of lead to every part of the cord that passes through a cork of weight sufficient to sink the cord and corks to the bottom, but let the weights be attached to the cord by strings of a length equal only to three-fourths of the depth of the water. To your scientific and comprehensive mind this experiment would be superfluous but to the generality of mankind it might be profitable and would not even by scientific men like yourself disregarded on account of its simplicity. I need scarcely add that it is my wish that you should in your own way endeavour to give on a grand scale to the submarine telegraphic cable the benefit on a grand scale of this humble suggestion. Bland replied immediately, offering ‘warm thanks for your highly prized letter’.7 After acknowledging the friendship the two had shared from the ‘earliest’ days, he wrote, ‘I cannot but offer you additional thanks for the substantial proof you gave of that friendship by confiding to me a knowledge of your very interesting invention which you have described so well that I perfectly, I believe, understand it.’ He hoped the following week it would be possible ‘to gratify myself with the pleasure of seeing and conversing with you’ on the subject. Whether Therry’s idea ended up being ‘adopted in its entirety or not’, he continued, it threw ‘quite a new light’ on the problem of perfecting an undersea telegraph connection. A solution was a matter of vital concern ‘to the civilization, happiness and advancement of mankind’. Whether the two had the proposed discussion is not recorded, but the matter remained on Therry’s mind and he wrote to Bland again in March 1863, nearly two years later, drawing the doctor’s attention to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the Atlantic cable.8 This told the story of efforts to date, initiated in 1851 and crowned briefly with success in August 1859 when Queen Victoria and U.S.